This is the end of the preview.
Sign up
to
access the rest of the document.

Unformatted text preview: The Lewis Structure approach provides an extremely simple method for determining the electronic structure of many molecules. It is a bit simplistic, however, and does have trouble predicting structures for a few molecules. Nevertheless, it gives a reasonable structure for many molecules and its simplicity to use makes it a very useful tool for chemists. A more general, but slightly more complicated approach is the Molecular Orbital Theory. This theory builds on the electron wave functions of Quantum Mechanics to describe chemical bonding. To understand MO Theory let's first review constructive and destructive interference of standing waves starting with the full constructive and destructive interference that occurs when standing waves overlap completely. When standing waves only partially overlap we get partial constructive and destructive interference. To see how we use these concepts in Molecular Orbital Theory, let's start with H 2 , the simplest of all molecules. The 1s orbitals of the H-atom are standing waves of the electron wavefunction. In Molecular Orbital Theory we The 1s orbitals of the H-atom are standing waves of the electron wavefunction....
View
Full Document